alt Hacker NewsNot that I am trying to argue with you, I'm not, but people have a "gas station mindset" about EVs and it leads to confusion, so let me spell out how this trip would look with a "charging station" mindset:
Leave home at 100%/200mi
Drive to destination (approx 3 hours) arrive with ~0%/0mi
Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
Begin driving back home with a 20%/40mi deficit of range.
Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
Charge for 20%/40mi (~10 minutes)
Complete drive home and fully charge again.
Total extra time on 400 mile trip vs gas (assuming 300 mi tank range, so 1 fill-up): ~5 minutes (or 8 minutes if you stop for a quick charge on the way so you don't have to white knuckle down to 0%).
For cold driving in the winter, it would probably be closer to an extra 20 minutes.
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A few things -- I am not op, but I do drive an EV and sometimes drive it through some rural areas.
> Stop anywhere/anytime after you get below 60%/120mi
This is the aspect which isn't really possible in very rural areas. There is nowhere to stop at to charge, or the options are very limited. It's getting better, but it's the reason why people want more range.
Plus, in the midwest, the ranges tank in the dead of winter, due to sub-zero temperatures and headwinds.
> Charge while at destination to 80%/160mi
If you can. I have some family that doesn't have any power near where I park when I visit. I'm also there for less than the _many, many_ hours it would take to get an EV from ~0 to ~80% on a standard 15A/120v outlet.
In one case, they have a pretty big tesla super-charger something like 40 miles from them so I can top all the way up just before I get there if I go slightly out of my way. In the US, we still have a long ways to go in the US before _high current_ charging options are as ubiquitous as gas.
I love my EV, but you're really not being at all realistic here. That's more of a perfect possible case scenario based on numbers from a website, not a real world scenario. I take a ~350 mile drive to Milwaukee in our 300 mile range car (2025 Ioniq 5) and we have to stop three times on the trip in each direction.
You're not actually going to get 200mi from 100% when you have 2 people and baggage loaded and traffic exists, and no one sane would be comfortable arriving with literally 0% battery. Charging stops take minimum 10 minutes just accounting for getting off & back on the freeway; usually more like 30-40 minutes because why would you not just charge back up to 80% since you're stopped anyway? Your destination hotel almost certainly does not have a charger, or if they do they charge an idle fee, so you can't just leave it overnight, so really that has to count as another charging stop.
For a 200mi each way trip, realistically you're talking probably two 30 minute charge stops in each direction. That's not completely unacceptable (eg just have some lunch at one of the stops) but your 5-8 minute quote is absolutely not realistic. A bump up to 300mi range would drop that down to one stop in each direction, which would be a real benefit.